Dried Oysters Anyone?

I think there are probably foods that are meant to be dried and others that are not. For example, a dried grape to yummy raisin, plum to prune, and generally most fruits are acceptable in dried form. Some meat eaters would also claim that dried meat is good, perhaps even some types of fish. Dried oysters do not fit in this category. They should not be dried, and there should not be recipes calling for dried oysters. This opinion is mine of course, and I learned recently that likely millions of people in Asia (and throughout the world I suppose) enjoy eating and cooking with dried oysters. I say “yuck” to this because I now know from experience.

On Thursday night I went to a Chinese cooking class. On the menu were dried oysters with moss. Yes, you read correctly. The moss looks like black hair and then when it is prepared turns into a sort of goop. Yum. Our instructor started off the class by giving direction in English. I don’t think the expats in the class were as enthusiastic as we should have been about his English skills though, because he quickly reverted back to the comfort of Cantonese. This was going to be a demo class only for me. Watch and learn.

I won’t go into the details of the recipe except to say that I really enjoyed the detail that went into it. We had to create a “mold” within a bowl so to speak and to succeed at the recipe, you had to be quite delicate and precise with the layering of the dried oysters, moss and then fried lettuce. Have I said yuck yet? Yuck. So I was detailed and my cooking partner (fellow expat Sabita) shared equal responsibilities in making this delicacy popular during Chinese New Year. We felt the pressure. As expats we couldn’t eff up so to speak or else we would be made fun of. We had to produce something more extraordinary than everyone else in the class. When the time came, with the Cantonese chef looking on, we removed the bowl that was keeping our mold together and VOILA! We had a beautiful dried oyster moss dish.

Did I try it? Of course I did. Would I have it again? Not a chance.